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A federal appeals court has just ruled that President Obama violated the Constitution when he made recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board.

Below is more from the Associated Press:

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court has ruled that President Obama violated the Constitution when he bypassed the Senate to fill vacancies on a labor relations panel.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit says Obama did not have the power to make recess appointments earlier this year to the National Labor Relations Board.

Obama claims he acted properly because the Senate was away for the holidays. But the court says the Senate technically stayed in session when lawmakers gaveled in and out every few days for so-called “pro forma” sessions.

GOP lawmakers used the tactic specifically to prevent Obama from using his recess power to fill vacancies in an agency they claimed was too pro-union.

The Obama administration is expected to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.

Mark Gaston Pearce, chairman of the National Labor Relations Board, issued the following statement in reaction to today’s DC Appeals Court decision that President Obama use of recess appointments to install three people on the NLRB last year was unconstitutional. The action renders the board without a quorum to act and potentially invalidates a year’s worth of actions and rulings by it. [...]

Pearce, in short, is indicating that the NLRB’s strategy is to act as if the court’s ruling that the appointments were unconstitutional somehow only applies only to the particular case that went before the Appeals Court and hope that the White House can get the Supreme Court to quickly review the case.